The Role of Public Private Partnerships in Delivering Valuable Climate Information Services

Recently, deliberations in a not-to-be-named country in Africa between a private company and the national meteorological service resulted in a stand-off. The private company was looking to fill a noted business gap in climate information services, while investing in low infrastructure and capacity in place. Although the company presented its interest in working with the national meteorological service, the latter raised questions of business grabbing, trustworthiness and accuracy of data in a difficult series of conversations. Despite the potential that the emerging climate information services market represents, the two organizations have not yet overcome a fundamental lack of trust and familiarity.

To address situations like this, the Assessing Sustainability and Effectiveness of Climate Information Services in Africa (Sustainable CIS) project seeks to identify sustainable and effective models, including how to establish effective public-private partnerships.

In a recent literature review, the project found that in advanced economies there is value in having a mediator, or other neutral party, moderate initial conversations between national meteorological and hydrological services (NMHSs) and private sector providers.

While national meteorological services traditionally have been the primary providers of such services, a trend is emerging of private sector bringing tools, frameworks and approaches into this arena–contributions that may help bridge weaker public service technology and organizational gaps. For end users, this can be beneficial.

Other barriers include a gap between those who have internet access and those who do not. The African Climate Policy Centre, which studied the issue, stresses that information technology infrastructure is essential for generating robust climate information, along with efficient communication platforms for dissemination. Likewise, it is necessary to curate and deliver relevant knowledge products for end users[3].

Government institutions and the private sector together might bridge this divide to produce and communicate high quality climate information. For example, the private sector could play an important role by providing information infrastructure as it does in other sectors, like transportation and telecommunications. A 2015 Evidence on Demand Review also found that private sector firms could also be useful as intermediaries who add value to weather and climate information by translating information for different sectors.

The market for climate information services in Africa is nascent. Some stakeholders contend private companies, universities and other agencies should be regulated to ensure quality. Establishing transparent international and national norms and best practices is a priority. A more thorough, country-specific market analysis of revenue generation opportunities is also critical to ensure that the private sector works hand-in-hand with the main national climate information producers.

Many climate services projects already engage the private sector. Institutions such as the Programme on Climate Information for Resilient Development in Africa and other NGOs and donors have learned from private sector interactions. Creating a space to share and learn from these experiences is valuable to ensure that climate services effectively umderpin climate resilience and adaptive capacity.

The private sector has invested in providing climate services in large economies for more than 50 years across different sectors – from agriculture to engineering. There is a large global market, and though estimates of market size vary, one study finds that £12.3bn global revenues were generated for climate services in 2011 – and are projected to grow to £16bn by 2015[2]. The Weather Channel estimated in 2012 that the total private sector market in the US accounted for $5.1 billion USD[3]. . With insufficient government funding to cover services provided by the private sector, the private sector’s role is essential to the provision of climate services.

[1] http://www.uneca.org/acpc/pages/climate-information-services-supporting-africa%E2%80%99s-development